With the global tablet market becoming mature and related shipments gradually weakening, China's white-box players are leaving the market and turning to focus on new businesses such as 2-in-1 devices, robots and virtual reality.
Worldwide tablet shipments reached the peak in 2013 at more than 200 million units, of which Apple's iPad series contributed 74.2 million units; however, the volume has been dropping each year and iPad only shipped 49.6 million units in 2015.
In the second half of 2015, the number of white-box tablet players in China had fallen to one-third of segment's peak. Although Intel has been providing assistance to white-box players over funding, technology, marketing and orders to help them develop Intel-based tablets, most white-box players have not been aggressive about selling these products.
For ARM-based tablets, vendors are selling off inventories and no longer developing new models.
However, with white-box players turning to emerging applications, some market watchers are concerned that these new markets will see a new wave of price competition.
Source: Digitimes
